Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-01-21

the interstate commerce bill is a declara-
ton on the part of Congress that hereafter
this natural and voluntary adjustment
shall cease, and an arbitrary, statutory or
legislative adjustment shall usurp its
place Looking backward, we see a vast
volume of capital which has poured into
the United States from the idle
capital of the old world, and conferred
upon us that rapid growth and de-
velopment which has made us the
marvel of modern nations. Looking for
ward, we see that stream of enriching cap
ital confronted by the menace of arbitrary
regulation, by rigid standards which are
intended to deny to transportation the
benefit of small earnings where larger
cannot be obtained-and, beyond this, the
declaration of the right and the expe-
diency on the part Of the vast majority
comprising the shipper class to determine
by legislative enactment the rate at which
they shall be served. To declare that this
policy is not an invasion of natural rights,
to declare that it is not fraught with the
danger of practical confscation, is to
bastardize the most common intelligence.
The inherent tendency of any line of
legislative policy will inevitably work out
results in accordance with these tendencies.
They are like the constant forces of nature,
which, however seemingly checked, him
dered or delayed sooner or later reach the
full measure of results. When repre-
sentative legislative body enters upon the
control of matters in obedience to the de-
mands of constituency the vast majority
of which is interested pecuniarily in
given direction, the line of legislation to
follow will most certainly follow the
constant forces of nature tending in that
direction. Thus, the Inauguration of
policy of regulating the rates of transport
alton by Congress in the interest of the
majority Will sooner or later degenerate
into an arbitrary determination on the
part of the shipper of the rate at which
he is to be served. We repeat that this is
true because the inherent tendency of leg
islation in this regard is in this direction,
and whatever is inherent cannot be re-
sisted. The ownership, then, of railroad
property, as existing in the United States
to-day, and the development and extension
of railroad systems in the future, is there
fore placed, and to be placed, under the
menace of policy which at once divorces
control from ownership. Before the in
vestment in railroads. the capitalist owns
the money he proposes to invest. Its in
vestment passes from the control of capital,
from the hand of him who owned it, into
the hands of those who are to be served by
it. Between the policy of arbitrary con-
troll by the representatives Of the shipper
of the rate at which he is to be served,
and the ultimate con6scation of the prop
erty thus wrested from the control of its
owners, the distance is not great, and the
gravity of the descent is most natural
Viewed in this light, the legislative policy
inaugurated by the interstate commerce
bill, is, in its ultimate and most logical
analysis, the beginning of well-ordered,
thoroughly systematized, methodical con-
fiscation. 1t is Communism in its most re-
spectacle, but not less effective aspect.
In their individual capacity the people
are honest, just in their intention, and fair
in their purposes. The aggregate express
sion of these virtues as reflected by legis-
lation is forever distorted and deformed by
the selfish greed of classes. Individual
men do not desire to steal the property in
vested in railroads; but the arbitrary,
forcible legal reduction of freight rates re-
lieves the individual of the moral odium
of the theft, and places it in a measure
upon a representative body, called the
Legislature or Congress. In this aspect it
borrows sanction from the dignity and ex-
altation of the body practieing it, and
thereby loses the repulsive hideousness
which attaches to individual larceny.
Thus, the process of confscation which
will come in with the Inauguration of the
new policy will reach to vast lengths of
dishonesty beyond the point where indi-
vidual conscience would permit it to go.
Against the inevitable results of this
new Congressional policy every dollar in
vested in railroad property, impelled by
the instinct of self-preservation, will enter
the political arena, invited by the strongest
motives which govern action. When in
self-defense, the billions Of money invested
in railroad property in the United States
is literally coerced to enter the caucus, the
convention and the lobby of legislation
the decentralization may easily be appre-
hended, and the venal elements of society
may be justified in the annual observance
of the day upon which this vicious policy
was inaugurated.
So far as intention and "talk' can